Chicago Public Schools Social Studies Teacher, Parent, & Spouse, Masters Urban Education Policy, Working to become National Board Certified

Why Did Kajuan Raye Run If He Was Not Guilty?

Because Kajuan is Black and was killed by the police, we instead look for any and every possible way to justify his death.

11/26/2016 05:12 pm ETUpdated
Nov 28, 2016

Chicago Sun Times
Kajuan Raye

This is the question that white people love to ask. Because surely if Kajuan was innocent he would’ve just stood there, explained he did nothing wrong, the police would’ve realized he did nothing wrong, and then all parties would’ve gone peacefully on their merry ways. Unfortunately, this is not the way the system of policing works for many people of color.

When I was in high school, my bored friends and I would frequently do dumb things to pass the time. One of the dumbest things we enjoyed doing was running from the cops. We were fit 17 and 18-year-old kids full of boredom, white privilege, and a strong sense of invincibility.

A group of us went to a local park, called the police from a pay phone and told the dispatcher that there was a fight in the park. To ensure a sense of urgency during the phone call we would yell and smash glass bottles in the background. We would then wait the short amount of time that it would take to see a cop car pulling up before taking off running. We knew the area well and also believed we could not be caught and we never were.

Now is this the reason Kajuan Raye ran? Maybe, but it’s not likely

Having taught in Chicago Public Schools for ten years, I’ve heard many, many stories from my students about the police harassing them, far too often, for no reason. In my first year teaching, one of my students came to my 1st period class crying. This 15-year-old kid told me how the police came speeding up on him while he was walking to school. They urgently got out of their cars cursing with their guns drawn. They made him lay in the snow before eventually realizing he was not who they were looking for. He was simply walking to school.

So did Kajuan run out of fear of police harassment? Maybe.

Maybe he ran because he was aware that Sandra Bland and Freddie Gray died while in police custody. Maybe he ran because Chicago still operates Homan Square, a secret detention site used to torture our own citizens and he was in fear of being taken to a place like that.

Or maybe he ran because he was aware that in Chicago alone, Rekia Boyd was murdered by a cop for no reason other than being outside at night, Bettie Jones was murdered by a cop for no other reason than opening her door and Joshua Beal was murdered by a cop because he was blocking a fire lane.

Maybe these are the reasons he ran.

Regardless of why he ran, we know that the police were called because of reports of a battery that happened relatively close to where Kajuan Raye happened to be waiting for the bus. Kajaun ran. A cop said Kajaun pointed a gun at him, twice. The cop shot him in the back and killed him.

Yet no gun has been found.

So instead of asking why he ran, instead of digging through a teenager’s Facebook profile to imply that he deserved to die, maybe ask why did the police shoot a kid for running? Why did the officer lie about the gun? What is the name of the officer who did this?

These are the questions we should be asking.

But because Kajuan is Black and was killed by the police, we instead look for any and every possible way to justify his death.

Thankfully I’m not dead from running from the police when I was younger. Kajaun Raye who did less than I did, should not be dead either.